


The hundred-thousand light year roads

by lilith_morgana



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-08 10:45:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10384905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana
Summary: Here be dragons and bite-marks. Stories about Adelle Ryder and Cora Harper.





	1. Here be dragons

**Author's Note:**

> So Bioware may have robbed me of yet another space wife but we'll always have fanfiction, I suppose.

_Just as my own mouth is dreamed to thirst_  
_the long desire-ways, the hundred-thousand light year roads  
_   _of your throat and thighs._

(from ‘How the Milky Way was made’ by Natalie Diaz)

 **  
** ****

* * *

**  
Ark Hyperion, year 2185**

 

Four nights before departure and the more scientist-minded part of the crew is watching holovids of an open Council conference about the discovery of the kirik. The rest - most - of them are just idly preparing, repeating the pattern of the past few months though you can tell the difference in the air now, can almost scan the rising tension.The room is shimmering with low discussions and high stakes, soaring nerves and loud doubts like little energy clouds popping up everywhere.  
  
Lieutenant Harper looks cool, the safe harbor in the upcoming storm. She stands in the doorway, half-leaning against a wall panel and there’s a detachment to her that doesn’t make sense but does, at the same time. Dad wouldn’t have singled her out like this if she wasn’t his sort. _Their_ sort.  
  
“So apparently they think these new insects are biotics, huh?” Adelle balances a drink in her right hand, a datapad in her left. It probably looks way more suave in her head, in reality it just makes her wobble slightly where she stands. Clearing her throat, she puts the datapad down.  
  
Harper looks up from her reading; the beer beside her still looks cold but warming up rapidly, the surface of the glass is wet. If she curves her hand around it now, Adelle thinks, it will leave a mark. _Good observation, make sure you log it later. Humanity’s best and brightest._  
  
Their look at each other, the lieutenant observing her in silence, eyes sharp as a scientist before her subject.  
  
“Apparently,” she says then, something dismissive and almost hard in her tone. Doesn’t like to talk about biotics much - at least not her own, at least not with her Pathfinder mentor’s annoying kid. Adelle knows this but somehow her mouth doesn’t.  
  
“That’s almost enough to make me want to stick around.”  
  
“You’re a weird one,” Harper says, her expression thawing and the entire ship with it.  
  
  
  
\---  
  
  
  
  
Three nights before departure and the staff is double-checking the inventory for the fifth time today. Behind them, doctor Carlyle is discussing medbay supplies with two junior officers whose names Adelle has yet to learn.  
  
There’s time for that once they reach Andromeda, she supposes.

There’s time for a lot of things. Even so, people are arranging last suppers as if they’re prisoners facing execution.  
  
“Hey, triple bacon burgers with fries coming up!” Larsen, a teacher from Oslo who had joined them five months ago during their last recruitment drive, stands in the middle of the room, waving her hands like she’s having a field trip with her class. Some class, too, full of rowdy recruits and fully grown professionals intent on cryo-sleeping through their midlife crisis out in deep space.

Adelle and Harper both shake their heads, eyes meeting over the queue that forms around the burgers.  
  
“Good fries, though,” the lieutenant admits as they share a box of salty goodness later, cross-legged on a pair of crates near the science labs. “Don’t underestimate the importance of junk food.”  
  
“I’d never.”  
  
Harper grins.  
  
“So.” Scott eyes her in their hotel room later that night. So many travels together sharing a flat or a suite and she’s never wished for a room of her own before, not since they were pre-teens and he suddenly started to wear _cologne_ , morphing into a weird boy-man overnight. But right now she’d give anything for some privacy. “Harper, huh?”  
  
“No idea what you’re talking about.”  
  
He flips his bag onto his bed and starts rummaging around in it; Adelle can still practically see the smirk on his smug face.  
  
“Uh-huh.”  


\---  
  
  
  
  
Two nights to go.  
  
It spins inside her, the uncharted future they are headed for; it spins inside her, tap-tap-tap along her spine and whirling up towards her head. Worry. It’s the same kind of worry that had eaten up most of her resources when her mom was ill and they never _knew_ , not for sure, the same kind of worry that had made her drop out of everything and sign up for this trip.  
  
It _spins_ and they have beer on deck tonight, some sort of improvised holiday spirit. We’ll miss Christmas this year, one of the engineers had said earlier and he had managed to sound genuinely regretful. Adelle can’t remember celebrating any kind of holiday the way some families do. Never much tradition with the Ryders. Unless you count burying yourself in your work a tradition, of course.  
  
And now here they are, on the verge of just about everything.  
  
_Or nothing._  
  
“Wonder if my dad got the blueprints from some higher power, too.” It’s probably the ale but the thought makes her head buzz. Infamously skeptical Alec Ryder talking to ancient gods about spaceships, counting and plotting for humanity’s exodus. _Don’t call it that, kid_. _Too bleak._ “Definitely bigger than three hundred cubits, though, right?”  
  
Lieutenant Harper raises an eyebrow. “Cubits?”  
  
“Cubits. Like in the Bible, I think. Noah, who built an ark. You know? I don’t know.” She does; it doesn’t feel like a good thing right now. Her fingers rake through her hair, out of habit, even though she’s started wearing her hair in ponytail now and instead of looking casual, her hand just gets stuck in a graceless sort of mess. As Adelle stifles a sigh, she imagines she can spot a very distant little grin on the LT’s face. “I guess I’m just babbling.”  
  
_Great start, team Ryder._

“Yeah, not my expertise.”  
  
Adelle gulps down more watery ale. There’s something about this woman here that makes her so damn hard to talk to. Or too easy. Usually a combination.  
  
“Nor mine. But Scott used to be _so_ into mythology of all sorts, you know. His room was always full of vids and printed books, even.” She shakes her head, looking over her shoulder as if she’s expecting her brother to stand there and argue with that story. He doesn’t. He sits somewhere else on the ship, probably rattling off some manuals he’s memorized every word from to everyone who happens to be nearby. The ideal settler, eager to go where nobody has gone before, remembering to record every step of the way. “He used to put the archives at the Citadel to use use, too.”  
  
And now she’s babbling again. About Scott, of all things.  
  
“It will be okay, you know.” Harper’s tone has shifted like sand, soft now around the words and Adelle swallows as the other woman tilts her head a little. _Comfort_ , she can handle anything but comfort. That gentleness wrapped around everyone and everything when things were bad with Mom, the flimsy filter of hands on her shoulder and reassuring nods left and right; for months she tried to pick a goddamn fight with the world, a straight-up _fight_ but to no avail. Good thing dad had risen to the occasion for once in his life. _Shape up, kid. Grow up._  
  
“Yeah,” Adelle nods, a little too eager to agree. “A good nap and then a bright future.”  
  
“Sounds about right.”

 

\---

  
  
  
One night left in the Milky Way.  
  
One and it’s already almost over.  
  
However she turns the thought over in her head, however it lands in her chest, it completely overwhelms her.  
  
Scott had sat beside her at breakfast, quiet and methodical with his oatmeal and his protein bars and she had poured them both a third mug of coffee when he had caught her glance, caught it like he had been waiting for the right moment. _What do you think you’ll miss?_  
  
She will miss hitting the bars at the Silversun strip after a long day. Bad games and trashy stories with her friend Karen. She will miss familiarity and shared history and all those things that she can’t find proper words for but that are there , a myriad of tiny pinpricks inside.  
  
And she will miss the endless wasted opportunities, all the happiness they never had.    
  
“Nothing,” she tells him now as they hug before he’s heading for his pod. “I’ll miss nothing.”  
  
“Liar.” There’s a half-smile and a brotherly eye-roll there somewhere, but mostly it’s the same kind of scattered concern that everyone around them seems to be full of. All these people, all the unfinished lives. Something roars inside her when she thinks of it like that, a surge that threatens to wreck her off her feet so she shakes it off, leaves his embrace.  
  
“Sleep tight.”  
  
“Don’t let the cryobugs bite,” Scott grins, broadly now that he’s on his way again and she’s watching him walk off.  
  
When Scott is about to get inside his pod, Adelle spots their father and raises her hand, waving. He nods back at her from across the room; before she’s had time to approach him, he’s swept away in a crowd of doctors and scientists and datapads and Adelle remains where she is, hands resting on her thighs.  
  
It’s Lieutenant Harper who squeezes her shoulder before she steps into her long sleep and Adelle closes her eyes, pretending she will dream of stars.


	2. Something you somehow haven't to deserve

”We'll find home,” she tells her brother quietly.

It's not the first time she's talked to Scott while he's not listening, not even  _ there _ , not even on the same planet. Twin thing people tell her. Twin bond transcending time and space and whatever other measurements there are and she's been chatting to him through training and travel, through dull lectures and even duller dates. _ She still hasn't stopped talking about Shanxi. Probably would like me better if I was Tadius Ahern. _

But this is different because he should be gearing up with them, should be arguing about shotguns with Harper and teasing them all about something lame; Scott should be seeing the Golden Worlds with the rest of them. Or at least be down there saving her ass when it turns out the worlds aren't as golden as the Initiative wants to believe.  _ You owe it to me, I came because of you. _

Kirkland picks up a spare heavy pistol and holsters it along with his shotgun. ”Let's go.”

”See you groundside,” Adelle says but  _ lingers _ . Everything suddenly seems so damn slow, like the energy itself has been wrecked and twisted around them, broken into a faulty pattern.

Hyperion is a shell of a home, but at least it's theirs.

It's  _ theirs _ and she doesn't want to lose more than they already have, leaving the Milky Way behind.

Harper puts a hand on her shoulder then, and murmurs. ”Steady. Come on.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Habitat 7 isn't home.

The absence of it – a shudder through her body, a heavy sigh covering up a more endless grief – exhausts her as much as the deadly weather and the collection of minor wounds they all return with.

All of them. Except their Pathfinder.   
  
  


\---

  
  
  


”Give her two hours.”

Adelle stares down into her coffee; the milk powder in it makes a faint swirl if she spins it, holding the mug between her palms. At some point in her past she could easily get everyone's coffee right – comes with military training as well as any kind of security job at the Citadel – but these days she barely remember her own preferences any more.  _ Black. No sugar.  _ She takes a sip, then puts it away.    
  
Beside her Kosta remains where he must have been for hours, trying to look suitably occupied with something on his omni-tool but she can see that he’s mostly watching her, like he’s expecting something dramatic to happen any second now.    
  
_ Dad’s gone, _ she tells Scott in her head before she remembers that SAM is there now, too. And  _ that  _ feels like a blow to her gut when she’s reminded of it. Whatever it is dad’s been doing, she can honestly say it’s never going to be uncomplicated. Not with him. Not with  _ them _ . The Ryders don’t  _ do  _ uncomplicated.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Kosta says. “About your dad.”   
  
“Thanks.”   
  
“I’m sorry,” Harper says, too, a while later, leaning forward slightly so that the light in the awfully bright room washes over her like rain. It turns her into a beacon. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”   
  
Adelle nods. She doesn’t tell her that Harper probably mourns Dad more, doesn’t tell her that he’s likely been more integrated in his biotic protégée’s life than he’s ever been in the existences of his own children. There’s a time and place for everything, Mom used to say and Mom was usually right.    
  
Downing her coffee, she blinks away tears that aren’t even there.    
  
Two hours.     
  
  
  
\---   
  


  
  


Nexus isn't home either but at least it doesn't attack.

Once the turmoil of arriving - all the hands and mouths and more or less ridiculous demands being thrown at them – has subsided, Adelle finds a secluded corner of the docking bay and just sits  _ down _ .

It seems they never really do that after the cryosleep, seems like their bodies are just lunging themselves forward, terrified to fall back into rest. Even the Nexus, unfinished and in some kind of stasis still, seems restless because it’s afraid to disappear back into oblivion. When you’ve walked out of everything once already you really don’t want to end up nowhere with nothing.   
  
“This should have been dad’s moment,” she mutters into her coffee. At least Nexus still has coffee despite its ever-decreasing resources. “And dad’s goddamn  _ mess  _ to sort out.”

”I know he could be distant,” Harper says, leaning against a massive planter containing weird-looking leaves that Adelle can't place in any known flora. Maybe it's entirely made up. Wouldn't be surprising to her by now to learn that the Andromeda Initiative has wasted credits on creating stuff like that.  _ Well, everyone needs a hobby _ , Scott says and she can almost hear the grin on his face. ”But he always said he wanted to go out among stars no one had seen.”

”Sounds like him.”

”Sounds like  _ every _ Ryder I know.”

Adelle shakes her head, glancing sideways at the lieutenant. The same tense silhouette as usual, the clear lines around her; something different at the bottom of her expression, though, a sharper shade of anger in her face. She's not okay with the new hierarchy; she’s not  _ okay  _ but she's a soldier, professionalism is carved into her bones and she’d never allow herself to let it matter. The facts of that - hard, angular little blows - rattle in Adelle’s chest. 

”I wouldn't have minded staying, you know,” she says.

”Really?” Harper looks surprised or irritated. Adelle is, too. Both of those things. 

The Pathfinder's daughter. The  _ Pathfinder _ . There's an itch beneath that word, as if it's been implanted into her body like SAM. In a way it has.

”No. Maybe. I don't know. Thought I had found my thing, working with the Prothean artefacts and studying that tech.”   
  
It’s the brief summary of a brief career, one that she rattles off whenever people ask. Leaving on the blanks created by bouts of just drifting, of being rebellious and lazy and everything in between. In comparison to Harper’s stellar CV, Adelle’s shrinks, huddled in a dark corner somewhere. 

”But you hadn’t?”

Harper searches for her gaze, searches for something in it that Adelle isn't sure she can show. It’s so complex now, everything’s so intertwined and tangled up but in a different galaxy in a bar somewhere, Adelle would have simply smiled and offered this other woman a great story, true or not. A great story, a beer and a very specific kind of  _ gaze _ , lingering in the hopes of landing right.

”I'm here now,” she says instead. 

They are. The Pathfinder and the one who ought to be Pathfinder and a whole wretched galaxy to set right. She wants to ask for loyalty, for devotion, but figures she can hardly ask more of anyone at this point so instead she inhales her coffee and gets to her feet, swallowing hard. 

 


End file.
